Mulletropolis Mourns Hero It Calls 1 Of Its Own

Brevard & state - BREVARD AT LARGE

Goodbye guy. It has been another quiet week in Mulletropolis, Brevard's secret city, where folks' corns don't hurt, the river doesn't stink and everybody wins the lottery at least once.

Newsstands in Brevard will get copies today of Superman No. 75 in which the Man of Steel dies at the hands of that villainous monster, Doomsday. Black bunting and red, knee-length, crocheted booties, made and donated by Elnora Scruggs, hang from light poles on Main Street. At the diner, Mabel has been handing out black armbands with every $1.98 omelet-and-grits breakfast special.

''I don't care a hoot about making money on this,'' she said. ''I just want the big guy to go out in the Mulletropolis manner knowing that the town remembers.'' Diner regulars have been crying in their prune juice all week.

Nothing could have brought folks in town - and just about everybody else - so closely together in their grief as news that Superman has bought the farm.

''Fine young man,'' said Hedy Smedley. ''Only 54. Why must it always be our kids who go off to fight battles and never come home?'' Everything is relative. Hedy is 91, still drives, goes to aerobics class Wednesday nights in the Moose Club lounge and retains a hankering for handsome, muscular young studs in blue leotards.

Most folks in Mulletropolis got their copies of No. 75 a week ago. That's because Brevard's secret city has more Superman Comics subscribers per capita than any other community between here and Krypton.

Don't have to believe me. Ask folks at the post office. Which is in a portion of Postmistress Agatha Percy's bungalow out on Christopher Reeve Parkway, near the Mulletropolis Community Compost Project and the Clark Kent Museum Gift Shop and Used Car Sales.

''Mulletropolis has been following Superman since 1939,'' Agatha told a Channel 6 TV newsman the other night. ''That's like yesterday here in town, mind you. When a new comic book issue comes out, we got 'em stacked to the ceiling in the parlor, er, the sorting room, here at the post office.''

Deputy City Historian Angora Toollee also was on the TV news telling about Mulletropolis' unique connection to America's superhero. She filled in for her boss, Chief Historian Samantha Clampton Dufuss, who was so distraught she was in seclusion with a bottle of imported intergalactic tequila.

''Few people know it, but the idea for Superman was born right here in town,'' Toollee said. ''An artist named Mick Whyde, out of work after the New York World's Fair, was hitchhiking to Miami, got lost and followed the aroma of fish-head soup right into town. That was in the days before the landfill. Whyde got himself a job at Mulletropolis Yesterday.

''In Mosquito County days, we were called Smallville, then later Mulletropolis. In the comic strip, the city of Metropolis was where Clark Kent and Lois Lane worked on the Daily Planet. Obvious takeoff on Mulletropolis. Anybody can see that.

''Theodora Rivenbacher, now a quite-senior reporter at Yesterday, was just a cub reporter when Whyde walked into town and promptly went ape over her. She became his inspiration for creating Lois Lane. 'Course, Theodora doesn't look much like Lois anymore. Sure doesn't.

''But the rotten part of all this for folks in town is knowing that Lois spent all these years in a strictly platonic relationship with a nerd like Clark Kent, never getting to know what was under that $2 Arrow shirt.

''Now, here she is with one foot on the running board of Meals on Wheels and the poor kid still thinks 'consummate' is the name of a soup.''

Only person in town glad to hear that Superman has been terminated with extreme prejudice was Police Chief Stonewall ''Pappy'' Fedora, who spent the last 36 years answering calls about some creep changing clothes in the phone booth in front of Dinkle's Five & Dime. And always got there too late.

That's about it for another week from Brevard's closet city. Until next time, keep trying.